Whether it’s seeing a documentary on famed drag queen Divine in all her, um, glory, or laughing to the “filmed entirely in Long Beach” film “Birthday Cake,” or watching several movies by a producer/director with deep ties to Long Beach, there should be something for everyone as Q Films Long Beach celebrates its 20th year of bringing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender films to the city.

After sifting through a record 180 submissions, festival executive director Ron Sylvester said this year’s series is the largest and most diverse in festival history. About 50 movies and shorts have been wedged into two full days and a Friday night at the Art Theatre and LGBT Center of Long Beach.

Kicking off Saturday’s films is a full-length feature comedy that was filmed almost entirely in a house near Cal State Long Beach and features a number of well-known veteran actors such as Lee Meriwether, Helen Shaver and Jane Badler.

“Birthday Cake” – written, directed, produced and starring Chad Darnell – is the filmmaker’s sequel to a short film he made last year called “Groom’s Cake.”

The 85-minute, documentary-style movie was shot during a hectic week in Long Beach for about $30,000. And that includes union wages for cast and crew.

Darnell said the movie tracks three days leading up to the birthday of the child of a gay couple and, as Darnell puts it, “calamity ensues.”

Making its West Coast debut, the film has already received raves, including best comedy when it premiered at the Kansas City International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

For Darnell, who lives in Los Angeles, having the film shown close to home is particularly exciting.

“We’re all L.A.-based and the cast and crew will be able to see it together for the first time,” Darnell said.

Darnell added he was particularly excited about bringing the film to a Long Beach community that he said “actively supported us.”

With a strong cast that includes Meriwether, a former Miss America and Catwoman, as a grandmother with Alzheimer’s, former “V” star Jane Badler as herself and performing a particularly inappropriate song, and veteran TV and movie actress Helen Shaver as the mother of Darnell’s character, there is plenty of scene-stealing and often breakneck acting.

Darnell says one of the moments in the film that has received the strongest reaction is an emotional part in which Shaver rips her son for shunning the family after he came out, rather than the other way around.

“A lot of straight people with gay siblings said they wished their parents had seen this,” Darnell said. “We did this film for straight people.”

Sylvester said this year, the festival received a large number of films with high school themes.

“For many years, filmmakers didn’t tell that story,” he said. “We also had a lot that dealt with it comedically.”

One of those is “First Period,” a feature film directed and produced by Cypress native Charlie Vaughn.

The movie, which debuted in March at the Corkfest and was a multiple award winner, was recently accepted to the Hollywood Film Festival.

For Vaughn, who will also show the feature film “Heterosexual Jill,” which he produced, showing films in Long Beach has special meaning.

While Vaughn grew up in Cypress, he says he came out in Long Beach, which was the closest city with a thriving gay community when he was growing up.

“I went to my first gay teen support group at the Center,” he said. “So this is an awesome homecoming.”

In “First Period,” which features two male actors as awkward teen girls and Cassandra Peterson of Elvira fame as an alcoholic, oblivious mom, Vaughn says he “stumbled onto” a movie that hit with diverse audiences.

“A huge number of heterosexuals have loved it, and so have lesbians,” he said. “Very few films cross over.”

Despite the success of “First Period” with non-gays, Vaughn says he will continue to do what he does, which is “make films that resonate with gay audiences.”

Greg Mellen is a veteran award-winning reporter with more than 30 years experience at papers in California and Missouri. He joined the Register newspapers with the Long Beach Register and now primarily covers Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley. He received his master's degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and was a faculty member and sports editor at the Columbia Missourian. In his free time he likes to read and dabble in fiction writing, which he tries to keep out of the newspaper.

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